Pretty much this...
Except I see it as people who want to play an MMORPG, and people who want to play a lobby game.
The age of the Battle Royale is here. Blizzard is going for that new kid who only has an attention span of about 45 mins. Speed running a few Mythic + dungeons makes for a decent play session for them. Raiding a couple hours a couple nights week is pushing it.
But if they don't see progression in that 45 mins or couple hours... forget it "da game suxes".
This is Blizzard's (and by Blizzard I mean that asshat Ion) big failure. They are trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. You cannot make a MMORPG playable for small sessions, give away all the progression as rewards for logging in, then expect people to want to play more of it.
But truth be told... WoW truly is doomed... because Blizzard doesn't care about releasing a quality game... they care about releasing a profitable game. Don't get me wrong.. Azeroth isn't dead... it's just waiting to be reborn on mobile. Some pseudo MMO-ARPG is coming... and modern WoW will soon be dropped... using the Classic series to soak up as much $$ as they can before finally letting WoW die.
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Hardcore is a transient term. A game that requires 20= hour s a week for meaningful progression could be considered hardcore.
A game someone COULD play 40 hours a week is hardcore.
A game someone WANTS to play for 20-40 hours a week... is not BfA. lol